


incisions

by venndaai



Category: Sunless Sea
Genre: F/F, Gore, Magical Realism, Medical Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-15 00:55:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13602171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/pseuds/venndaai
Summary: In the enclosed space of the surgery the shadows lurk, and the knives glitter strangely. A collection of shadows resolves itself into a woman, leaning against the table.“Doctor,” she says, “you have a patient. I need something removed.”





	incisions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sath/gifts).



 

The Zee Captain is a remarkable woman. Just as the Heir suspected- hoped- she would be, from the slant of her hat and the look of her well-worn yet cared for ship with its unusual crew, the day the Heir made her way to Wolfstack Docks looking for a way to begin. Begin what, she hadn’t known, not then.

The Captain has been zailing a lot longer than the Heir has. She’s hardened and roughened, and tattoos cover her back, along with scars, each bringing its own unbelievable tale. She’s been stung and poisoned and infected by nearly all the Zee’s dangers. Sunlight glimmers in her dark eyes; zee-madness hides in the curve of her mouth; strange, forbidden appetites have nested in her stomach, their only outward sign a small dark rash. The Heir runs her ice-cooled fingers over the raised bumps of skin, and thinks, I could remove it all. 

She could. But- sometimes imperfections are what create beauty.

The Captain, on her part, seems to be amused by the Heir’s examinations. Though occasionally she grows impatient, and sometimes implements are knocked off the examination table quite carelessly. The Captain’s hands are cold as the Zee, but her mouth is warm as the heart of the Bazaar. Under such contrasts, the Heir writhes.

She’d never admit it, but sometimes she almost feels outmatched. She’d never admit it, but sometimes she thinks she likes that. As long as it stays occasional. 

Then one dark night- out at zee, a full week from any port, nothing but the still cold waters all around and the glimmer of false stars up, up above- the Heir returns to the surgery from an invigorating walk on the deck to find her Captain waiting in the shadows. 

The surgery is no darker than the deck, but the darkness on the deck has a different quality. The dark on the deck is natural, it has a smell and a taste and defines the spaces between glim-lights, the flicker of the prow mirrors. In the enclosed space of the surgery the shadows lurk, and the knives glitter strangely. A collection of shadows resolves itself into a woman, leaning against the table. 

“Doctor,” she says, “you have a patient. I need something removed.”

“And what’s that?” the Heir asks, unrolling her selection of scalpels, taking out the sterilization equipment from its cupboards. 

“A hunger,” the Captain says, leaning forward to murmur, inches away from the Heir’s ear. “A longing that won’t leave me alone.”

“And have you tried sating this hunger?” the Heir asks, testing the sharpness of a blade, eyes on that and not on the skin exposed as the Captain removes her shirt. 

“Oh, yes,” the Captain replies. “Many times. But it just keeps coming back.” Her breath is warm on the Heir’s neck, and then her mouth is wet, sucking and nibbling. The Heir has to push her off, eventually, down onto the table. 

“Are you serious about this?” the Heir asks. “I can do it, if it’s what you want.”

The Captain’s eyes give away nothing at all. “Is it what you want?” she responds. 

What the Heir wants, quite unrelentingly, is to slice open that scarred skin and plunge her hands deep into the heat inside. She is shaken by the force of this want, though she thinks she does a good job hiding it. 

“Lie back,” she says, pulling on her gloves and removing the cover of the gas-lamp on the table so she can hold the first scalpel to the flame.

Something does change in the Captain’s expression then, but the Heir can’t tell what it means. The Captain reclines on the table, skin breaking out in goosebumps, as languidly as though resting on the beach in Aestival. 

The Captain has always had an interesting reaction to pain, the Heir muses, as she makes the first incisions, doing her best not to be distracted by the woman’s soft sigh, the flutter of her eyelids. 

Foolish, to be operating at zee when the procedure could be delayed, but neither of them are in the habit of avoiding risk. 

The layers of skin part smoothly like warm butter, revealing muscle, fatty tissue, and beneath, organs, glistening like hidden jewels. The Heir’s hands are steady as a machine’s. Like iron, she thinks. The Captain breathes slowly, her earlier excitement apparently replaced by calm anticipation. 

The Heir rests her gloved fingers on the outer skin of the Captain’s stomach for a moment, and then slips them inside the incision. Unerringly she locates the item she is looking for, at the junction of large and small intestine- the appendix, larger and redder than it ought to be. She touches it, without any pressure. The Captain’s eyes are closed. The woman’s own hands are moving with sensual slowness across her own neck and down towards her chest. 

Only the smallest cut- only a quick suture- and the Captain would look at her without any heat in the slightest. 

“Do you not care at all?” the Heir asks, suddenly sharp. “Whether I remove this?”

The Captain’s hands still, but her eyes do not open. She murmurs, “I wanted to give you the choice. I thought that would make a good gift.”

The Captain’s always given the Heir everything she asked for, ever since she first joined this crew. But she didn’t ask for this. 

The Heir doesn’t say anything. Just pulls out her hand, and begins to close the body up with the same efficiency that she opened it. 

Without anaesthetic, the Captain twitches at every dart of the needle, and so the stitching process is slow and careful. The silence presses, with almost as much physicality as the darkness. To break it, the Heir says, “The inflammation may resolve on its own.”

“Most things run their course eventually,” the Captain agrees. 

But not tonight, the Heir thinks. The final stitch is done, and she ties it off neatly. She’s far too professional to risk damaging her work, so when she presses her mouth to the Captain’s stomach it is directly below the stitching, not on it. 

Her mouth proves more effective at dismantling a Zee-Captain than her scalpel. Once again, heat blooms in the midst of a vast cold ocean. A remarkable woman, the Heir thinks again, and one who will soon carry a new scar, something that will remain long after she and the Heir have parted ways. 

Some day, the Heir thinks, she will take her souvenir. Gifts of trust and power are all very well, but everything ends eventually, and the Heir will have something to remember this by.

 


End file.
